A message to all recruitment consultants, agencies, head hunters etc out there

Hezzawithkids

Just to remind you that job seekers are human too.

When you send someone for an interview, it's polite to contact them afterwards to let them know how it went. Even if they are not going to progress any further with their application, some feedback from yourselves or from the person who interviewed them would help everyone involved wouldn't it? After all, a job interview is not something that you just roll out of bed one day and decide to go and do, especially when it is for a fairly senior, high-profile role. It takes preparation, research into the company and the industry (especially if its not a familiar one), thorough analysis of the job description, preparation of questions and rehearsal of the answers to several dozen competency-based questions that you may get asked (but usually aren't). Not to mention taking (unpaid) time off from their current role to attend the interview.

When you ask the candidate to call you immediately after the meeting for feedback, then decide to take the afternoon off, it's a sign of respect to call the candidate when you are back in the office or to let them know when you are available for a chat. And even if you don't, once a decision has been taken again it's a mark of respect, if not just polite, to let the candidate know if they are going onto the next stage or not. Also, if the candidate calls you and then emails you for feedback when you don't return their calls, don't you think you should at least acknowledge the attempted contact, even if you have no news?

I know it's a buyer's market and has been for some time blah blah blah but I leave you with two key messages:

1. Some potential candidates command very high salaries, so if you p*** them off to the extent that they won't want to deal with you again your commission is impacted
2. Some potential candidates will one day be in a position to recruit for themselves; trust me they will remember which organisations treat people with respect - and which do not

So remember this for the next time you pick up the phone and disrupt someone's day by telling them about "a fantastic job opportunity", karma is real and will one day bite you in the a55.

Happy New Year.

CCFC_80

RULE number 1 to learn .......

Recruitment Agencies don't do customer service. Especially to their candidates who make them all their money :mad:.

The only way to get their attention is to pretend that you are an HR person at a leading bluechip company and have 6 jobs that want filling immediately. I bet they will return your call within 5 minutes;)

szam_

I've got to say, I've only ever been through an agency once, the guy who was handling it was calling me every few days to let me know how it was going, reassuring me and various other bits. All in all, I couldn't rate him any higher.

I have had other agencies calling asking me what types of jobs I'd like and what/how advanced my skill set was.

Turns out everyone in my department was recruited by the same guy, and is usually up against people put up by internal recruiters, who I must say were bad at feedback for the first role I was put forward for.

All in all, one bad experience from the company recruiters and one excellent from an agency.

Takeaway_Addict

Interviewers are wise not to give feedback incase anything they say is misconstrued as discrimination.

The less said the better.

sniggings

good post OP.

The company themselves can just be as bad, I was told I would be informed about an interview by phone on a certain day, no call, so I rang them back 2 days later, they said they hadn't decided yet, no sorry, no nothing, so I had to wait again...yet if you show them you are !!!! off with their customer service, it's suddenly you with the attitude problem, and they have the cheek to want someone excellent in customer service skills :rotfl:

Affynity

Thanks to this recession, we lost a very reasonable principle in employment which is: if you are a bad employer, you get a bad workforce.
Thanks to the economic climate, employers can capitalise on lost vocational mobility.
If your wages stagnate but your workload increases, what can you do?
You certainly can't go elsewhere.

My employer has been downsizing all year, but they're too greedy and near-sighted to see that sales are being inhibited by the economy and that reducing productivity isn't going to make that better.

I certainly agree with the recruitment disconnect though. Even if you had to spend a day contacting all the candidates to say "thank you for applying, but on this occasion you were unsuccessful and other candidates more closely met our requirements."
You shouldn't need to explain further, but it would only be good practise to do so.

We live in an increasingly connected world and human nature is more prone to complain rather than praise.
Treat people badly and entire loosely knit networks can find out about it, share experiences and negatively impact on your operation.

brightonman123

Stil waiting to hear back from one agecy, who was super keen to get me an interview, a wek before xmas.. he is now on hols til new year?!

dibuzz

szam_ wrote: »

I've got to say, I've only ever been through an agency once, the guy who was handling it was calling me every few days to let me know how it was going, reassuring me and various other bits. All in all, I couldn't rate him any higher.

My son was with an agency in Manchester who were excellent, ringing him every few days and always giving him feedback.
They had him in to do a mock interview as well before his last one which resulted in him getting the job and have rung several times since he started so see how he's getting on.

fannyadams

Dear Recruitment Agency...
Please do not think that because I haven't been to university that I am
a) thick
b) have no skills whatsoever
please do not think that because I am nearing 50 I am useless and should be on the scrap heap.
Please take the time to actually read my CV and not skim it (It's only 1 page long as it only has the important bits on it).
Please also take the time to understand what you client's brief for this position actually is.
that way you can match me to the jobs I am actually qualified and capable of and not just Science which is where you continually send me.
I can't do Prof Brian Cox's job and he can't do mine but (apparently) we both 'do science'..

imatt

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Interviewers are wise not to give feedback incase anything they say is misconstrued as discrimination.

The less said the better.

But without any kind of feedback, how do you as the interviewee know where you may be going wrong? And indeed how to rectify it?

LMH67

A big thanks to Hezzawithkids for this. May I add my bit following a recent experience.........

1. Don't turn up late for your initial meeting, especially after pressuring the candidate to make an excuse to leave work early for said meeting.

2. Don't tell a candidate it's for a permanent role to discover on interview it's a definate fixed term for 54 weeks.

3. Don't tell the candidate that notice of a month will be fine to then find that both the agency and employer will put extreme pressure on said candidate to leave their current contract early when they have already confirmed that full notice must be worked.

4. Don't keep texting / calling candidate when it is clear that you have royaly pi**ed them off with all of the above.

I've been seeking employment - perm / temp / contract through agencies since 1986 so it's fair to say have had my fill of all their lovely little tactics now. However, if you get a good one, like I've been lucky to occassionally in the past, you can really get looked after. Sadly, these are a dying breed.